War and sex tourism meet in ‘Red Light Jihad’: see the trailer

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Sungai Golok is a surreal sex tourism hotspot that Thailandís tourism authorities donít like to talk about. Itís a little bit Tijuana and a little bit Kabul ó a party town raging in the middle of an Islamic insurgency. (Image from GlobalPost’s "Red Light Jihad")

GlobalPost presents Red Light Jihad: Thai vice under attack, a short documentary on the holy war against sleaze in Thailand’s southern borderlands.

Sungai Golok is a surreal sex tourism hotspot that Thailand’s tourism authorities don’t like to talk about. It’s a little bit Tijuana and a little bit Kabul — a party town raging in the middle of an Islamic insurgency.

Everything that makes Thailand notorious is there: booze, late nights and prostitution. In lieu of Western men, the city’s brothels attract guys from nearby Malaysia, where raunchy nightlife is forbidden under Sharia law. Each night, men wade into a conflict zone where guerrillas wage war to wrench free a new Islamic state. The hostilities have racked up more conflict deaths in the last decade than the Gaza Strip.

Senior Southeast Asia correspondent Patrick Winn ventures to the Thai-Malaysia border to meet sex workers and men who pursue them. He speaks to Islamic separatists who despise Thai-style vice in their claimed homeland. And he meets Buddhist militias sworn to defend their villages from guerrillas.